Archive for March 1st, 2017

A Life in ActivismCleve Jones conceived the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, which has become the world’s largest piece of community folk art. He also co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, which has grown into one of the largest and most influential People with AIDS advocacy organizations in the United States. More recently, he fought to overturn California’s Proposition 8 and legalize same-sex marriage.

A bestselling novelist, essayist and journalist, and a prominent advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Oz’s work has been published in more than forty languages, and he has been recognized with many international awards including the Israel Prize, the Goethe Prize and the Frankfurt Peace Prize. Oz returns to the JCCSF to discuss Judas – his first major work since A Tale of Love and Darkness – an exquisite love story, and an allegory for the state of Israel.

Johnny Marr’s new autobiography, Set The Boy Free, tells the story of one the most influential guitarists and artists of all time. Marr has been constantly pushing musical boundaries in a career that has spanned decades, styles and genres. From co-founding The Smiths with Steven Morrissey, to forming Electronic with Bernard Sumner of New Order to collaborations with The Pretenders, Talking Heads, The The, The Cribs, Hans Zimmer and Modest Mouse, here is a true history of music—told by one of its very own legends.Listen Now!

Stephanie Danler’s Sweetbitter, a coming-of-age story set in the wild and alluring world of a famous New York restaurant, has made a buzz in the food world and beyond. Drawing on her years as a server, Danler deftly conjures the adrenalized world of a thinly-disguised top restaurant and evokes the simultaneous fragility and brutality of being young in New York with heart-stopping accuracy.

Acclaimed Russian-American journalist Masha Gessen reveals the complex, strange and heart-wrenching truth of Jews in twentieth-century Russia that begins with pogroms and ends with emigration. Gessen’s latest book, Where the Jews Aren’t: The Sad and Absurd Story of Birobidzhan, Russia’s Jewish Autonomous Region, tells the true story of the region the Soviet Union declared a homeland for Jews in 1929, only to traumatize them and render them invisible in the late 1940s.

ADHD NationMore than one in seven children now get diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder – three times what experts say is appropriate. Alan Schwarz, an award-winning New York Times national correspondent, discusses his latest book, ADHD Nation: Children, Doctors, Big Pharma, and the Making of an American Epidemic.

Astronaut Mike Massimino comes to the JCCSF for some real talk about space! Nerd out about everything NASA – from the first time he saw Earth from space and his first spacewalk, to his deep and abiding love for the Hubble telescope and what having “the right stuff” really means. A rare opportunity to meet one of the heroes of outer space!

Mark Bittman, longtime New York Times columnist and author of more than a dozen cookbooks, including the “bible” How to Cook Everything, is one of America’s most known, beloved and respected food writers. His new book, How to Bake Everything, demystifies, deconstructs and debunks myths about baking, making it simpler than ever before.

He’s played President Lyndon B. Johnson, a sitcom dad on Malcom in the Middle, blacklisted Hollywood writer Dalton Trumbo — and, most famously, chemistry teacher-turned-cancer patient-turned-meth overlord Walter White in Breaking Bad. In his riveting new memoir, A Life in Parts, Bryan Cranston opens up about the many parts he’s played on camera and off, and traces his zigzag journey from chaotic childhood to mega-stardom and cult-like following.

Emma Cline’s debut novel, The Girls, has taken the country by storm, easily becoming the most talked-about book of the year. With razor-sharp precision and startling psychological insight, the novel tells a seductive coming-of-age story inspired by the slavish young women caught up in Charles Manson’s bloody cult.